We love wwoofers!
We've had an amazing summer working hard with a lot of help from wwoofers.
For those who don't know the concept of wwoofing please see www.wwoof.org.uk. It stands for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. In exchange for free room and board at Ale Farm, people from all over the world have helped us on our land.
One example of the many projects we've worked on this summer is the edible meadow. Last autumn we started three hugelkulture beds. They needed a lot more work. Daniel, from Germany and Cecilia, from Italy, made a start by first clearing the ragwort that had grown up. See photo above.
Jean-Baptiste, from France, and Beate, from Germany carried on the work and Beate became expecially expert at building the beds. We had, and still have, plenty of prunings and clippings to build the beds. They'll be finished off with more compost and finally top soil.
Natalie, from California, gave the edible meadow its annual mow.
Isabelle, from France, and Agnes, from Germany came almost at the same time. Agnes actually cycled to us, via London and a few other site seeing detours! She carried all her luggage, including a tent, on her bike.
They couldn't bear to see our plums and blackberries go to waste. So, in addition to doing work outside, they made many jars of jam. Subsequent wwoofers and friends are really enjoying it.
The "plum scum" (much better than it sounds) was delicious on ice-cream.
We had special labels made. Hopefully they're worthy of the jam inside the jars.
We've been sorry to see our wwoofer guests leave. They've become good friends.
Maisie was the only British wwoofer we've had so far. We are expecting three more later in the month.
She tackled brambles. worked on a hugelkulture bed, cleared steps and came up with a novel way to support tomato plants.
She was also with us when we had a picnic for friends in our orchard. She was a big help with that too.
Many of our friends and neighbours have met our wwoofers and have been impressed. They also now know what wwoofing is all about.
We've invited all our wwoofers to join in with all other activities that we do. As many of them come from abroad and don't have transport, we've taken them to see things of local interest.
The photo on the left is Isabelle going on a walk with us with visiting family. It's a joy to show them around when they're so appreciative.
They did really well and impressed us with how quickly they took to dancing.
Needless to say, we all slept really well after working outside and then doing some energetic dancing.
Many of our wwoofer friends offered to help out with the cooking, something Mandy really appreciated.
We enjoyed delicious risotto, quiche, couscous, eggs & tapenade, apple cakes and pie plus general assistance in the kitchen.
Dominic and Liv came all the way from British Columbia. Liv, a pastry chef, impressed us with her sweet creations. They didn't last very long :).
We miss seeing all the shoes in the hallway. Tiny the dog misses the extra attention. We certainly miss the help, enthusism and friendship of everyone we met this summer.
We've had many interesting conversations, learned so much about things happening in other counties, laughed a lot, found many things in common and shared experiences of working with and for the natural world.
We hope to meet many of our wwoofers again, possibly here next summer. We may also make a few trips to see them in their home countries.
We wish them all the best and send them our love.
A few more photos:
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